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This is basically the "you calling me a liar?" argument. Wouldn't a straightforward boundary be that statements about your own thoughts and behavior are always permissible, regardless of the implications about the thoughts and behavior of another? Thus, "I don't know her" is not actionable, even though it implies "she is a liar", which could be actionable. "I was afraid of him" would not be actionable, but "he threatened me" could be.
Why do we have laws against defamation in the first place? Seems like generally, lying should be legal, or it opens up all sorts of issues.
Because human beings are not computers and operate with imperfect information.
Let's assume that someone makes a false complaint about the quality of work that you do- for instance, leaves a one-star review (to go with a popular example). This will affect your ability to get future business, and hence future income- you have been materially harmed by that statement. If that was done maliciously, how's that different than stealing that income directly?
Now, the US tries to play objectively, so you'll only get punished for doing it if it was false, and any reasonable person would have known it was false. But the problem is that even true-but-distasteful statements, like #metoo descriptions of sexual activities, have the same effect, which is why more conservative countries (like European ones) will punish true statements of this type as well whereas more liberal countries (by definition) value not punishing truth-telling over doing justice to liars.
That's the general idea behind it, anyway; whether those countries succeed in their aims is an entirely different matter, of course.
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